'Sort of...' said the Doctor, reaching backwards for his hat which remained just that bit out of his reach, until he reached back so far, that he fell onto his back. The hat tumbled from the umbrella and landed on his chest. 'Mmm,' he muttered, sitting up again, hat wedged firmly on his head. Ace finished off dusting her jacket down and brushed the back of the Doctor's coat.
'What is going on, Professor?' Ace asked. She saw the Doctor's mouth open and butted in: 'And don't fob me off with any old cobblers or excuse.'
The Doctor's mouth shut again. 'Alright. But lets find somewhere more conducive with our health, shall we?'
They both stood up, muscles aching and retrieved rucksack and umbrella. They looked around for some kind of shelter, and though the thick chocking smoke, Ace could make out a dim light flickering on and off.
'Hey, Professor, look!' she said, running into the smoke to see what it was.
'Ace!' shouted the Doctor, a cough following on his lips. He struggled, shook his head, and followed her in.
He found Ace in a relatively smoke clear area of the wilderness. The broken earth leered up at them at all angles to the sun, stabbing warm stares into it with a vicious form of pleasure.
Ace stood staring ahead of her, the rucksack dropped onto the ground, abandoned. Her mouth was wide in amazement, her eyes smiling at such clean familiarity in such a desolate region.
'Look, Professor. A lighthouse. What's it doing here?'
The Doctor eyed the white monument with a suspicious stare, as though it would bend down and try to bite them.
'You may well find a lot of them around here. They're regarded as perfect symbols of isolation. Something for those who come here to get to know plenty about...' He walked closer to it, a thousand thoughts racing towards one final winning post.
'So what is your mate, John doing here then?'
The Doctor turned around to face her. The truth seemed hard to speak openly. John is of an extremely unbalanced nature. His mind isunfortunately easily corrupted and therefore easy to tamper with and push in a certain direction. He was subject to fits of violent temper and mood. It was during one of these 'lows' that his darker self escaped from the Homeland, using his troubled mind as an easy door. The more troubled, scared, whatever John's mind got, the more powerful his darker self became.
The darker side made a bargain with him. If John could find mental peace and stability in a certain time limit the dark side would be vanquished and forced to remain in the Dark Regions of the Homeland for eternity. If, however John wasn't strong enough to live up to the challenge in that time limit, he would be left in the Homeland while the dark side could be allowed his freedom to live among mortal man. As you can see, he failed.'
Ace listened with growing horror as the story unfurled in the wilderness 'But if John knew he had a time limit, he would have worried to try and stabilise himself before the time was up...'
'And therefore the dark side knew it couldn't lose. It made the best deal ever known. The cuckoo wants the nest. The wide ocean wants the boat...'
'So what happens now then? How do we get home with John?'
The Doctor a weak smile. 'Tell you the truth. I don't know.'
They stood in the shadow of the majestic white monolith, as its mighty beam cut the air above the seemingly continual shower of dust caught in the spotlight wave, drowning in the light.
'Professor...' began Ace, who was looking with a degree of fright over his shoulder.
'Not now, Ace, I'm busy...' The Doctor bowed his head, thoughts falling around his head like the fine sheen of dust gathering on his hat.
'I think you're going to want to see this...' she said pointing behind him. The Doctor turned and saw John's dark reflection walking across the desert towards them, his black clothes flecked with the yellow dust, the wind taking his long hair behind him and holding it on a wave of stagnant air. The smile glowed in the distance.
'So you arrived in one piece I see. If you want to witness the inevitable, come this way.' He turned and led them a short distance into the swirling black smoke. The lighthouse continued to cast its eerie beam above and before them. Soon another building stood before them, a derelict factory of sort, overgrown with brittle weeds, a beached whale on a shoreline of broken earth.
An enormous metal chimney stack loomed enormously over them, roaring its approval by sending a vast spreading sheet of white flame into the air, enveloping itself and burning out some one hundred metres above its birthplace. Broken windows leered at them, some shattered purposely just to see the small human girl jump slightly in fright and agitation.
The parade of three stopped at a large opening. No door was visible, just a gaping square hole with darkness screaming beyond.
'Ladies first...' said the Homeland figure, stepping aside with another evil smile.
'Not on your life!' said Ace, stepping backwards and towards the comforting presence of the Doctor.
'Please, lead on...' the Doctor said to the man in black, 'Trust not a word on the agenda that day,' he thought.
Still smiling, the man inclined his head graciously and stepped into the building. The Doctor and Ace followed cautiously.
~~~
Darkness. Thick, interminable black, like being stranded in a dark field at midnight, no guiding lights to help, no landmarks to persuade judgements - the opportunity to run in any direction yet realise that you're running into more black.
Artificial lights sparked into life way above their heads in the airless void of the high ceiling. Shadows hung impressively from the black roof, dust storms whirling down in freefall arrangements. An elaborately carved witness box was obscurely positioned at one end of the staring figure of John, half out of his mind with the experiences forced down his throat in large unmanageable lumps. He was shaking violently in no fit state to fight for his life. Ace dropped her rucksack, yet again and ran to help the man, while the Doctor turned on the dweller of the Dark Region.
'Of all the contemptible species I've come across in all my travels, you are one of the lowest!' he spat, disgust injected into every word and pumped fully in the shadow man's artery. But the verbal poisoning had no real effect, if anything the man before the Time Lord seemed to swell with pride. He laughed a quiet laugh.
'What do you know, Time Lord? I set a challenge with a forfeit, and if the man in the witness box is too feeble a specimen of human life he deserves everything he gets.'
'Every race has those who can't cope adequately on their own. You know this. You were just plain lucky that you are the dark side of one of these unfortunates.'
The man laughed again. 'Lucky? Ha! Destiny is the word you can't trace. Doctor, I was destined to leave the Dark Regions. The Homeland is not my home.'
'Of course it is! There is no place on Earth for such lowly dregs as you or any of your kind here! You were meant to be imprisoned here and imprisoned you shall stay!'
The man stared at the Time Lord. 'There was a time when freedom meant more than that. It meant following butterflies across snow-bound meadows. It meant watching the setting sun throw circles of fire across the hillsides. It meant complete detachment in an ocean of blue.'
The last words fell on the echo of the high walls and faded. Even Ace looked over to see the man in black deliver what seemed a pretty convincing speech.
'That was when I discovered an easier passage between our worlds. All the creatures here feel the hate, pure and concentrated. But I felt touched by...love...and then...' He stopped, staring at John in the dim grey of the far wall, 'and then I met him, my human self, with the freedom to move as he to...' Anger began to burn brightly in the man's eyes, fierce hate arced across his face. 'He had forfeited his right to live on Earth!'
John collapsed to the floor of the witness box, uncontrollable sobbing, a shadow soundtrack to the demonic figure's ranting.
'But if you uniquely felt love,' the Doctor said with a hint of a smile on his face, 'then you too must have an even darker side...'
'No! It's impossible I tell you!' The figure convulsed, eyes bulging with terror. 'No! It cannot be true!' Fear started to line the failing figure's face.
'Then why are you getting worried? Fearful? Your defences are crumbling like sandcastles wide open to the violent sea. Your spirit is getting low, your own dark side is coming to claim you!' The Doctor stepped cautiously back as the figure buckled to his knees, darkness seemed to be pouring over the man, a tide of blackness flooded the wall behind. The Doctor turned to the witness stand.